Price Transparency Tool Attracts Users But Does Not Lead to Use of Lower-Priced Services

This brief summarizes findings from a study’s evaluation of a large Midwestern health information technology firm that offered their employees a price transparency tool. While 62 percent of households used the price transparency tool with cost and quality information at least once, there was no difference in purchasing behavior between those who used the tool and those who did not. Results from the evaluation, funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, are particularly surprising because the population studied was likely to be comfortable with digital tools and interested in health care savings as a high-deductible health plan is the firm’s sole source of health care coverage.